One day after a wave of antiwar protests swept the world, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned a quick US pullout from Iraq will result in terrorists taking it over - and insisted it would be tantamount to handing Germany back to the Nazis.
The warning, issued in an article in Sunday's Washington Post, appeared to contradict his assertions in the very same piece that terrorists were "losing in Iraq" while Iraqi security forces were steadily growing in size and capability as they get ready to assume control of the country.
"Today, some 100 Iraqi army battalions of several hundred troops each are in the fight, and 49 control their own battle space," Rumsfeld said. "About 75 percent of all military operations in the country include Iraqi security forces, and nearly half of those are independently Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-conducted and Iraqi-led." He pointed out that Iraqi security forces, rather than US troops, had enforced curfews after last month's attack on the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra that left the sacred Shiite shrine in ruins and triggered a spasm of sectarian violence.
But Rumsfeld made clear these forces will not be able to stand up to disparate insurgent groups that include Islamic radicals as well as loyalists of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. "Consider that if we retreat now, there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum - and the free world might not have the will to face them again," the defence secretary warned.
"Turning our backs on post-war Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing post-war Germany back to the Nazis," he continued. "It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination..."
The escalating rhetoric came after tens of thousands of people marched in European and American cities Saturday to protest the occupation that has been underway for three years. A new opinion poll unveiled by Newsweek magazine showed that popular approval of President George W. Bush's handling of Iraq plummeted to a new all-time low - 29 percent - while the share of those who disapprove of his Iraq policy shot up to 65 percent.
Rumsfeld's comments came as part of a public relations blitz, in which Bush and members of his administration paint consequences of an early US pullout in increasingly ominous and cataclysmic terms.
Speaking in Charleston, South Carolina, Friday, Vice President Richard Cheney described Iraq and other elements of the war on terror as "a battle for the future of civilisation." "We are dealing with enemies who view the entire world as a battlefield," he argued. "Their prime targets are the United States and the American people." Cheney was expected to reinforce his message in an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" talk show Sunday. Bush, who promoted his Iraq strategy last week, warned in his Saturday radio address that "the security of our country is directly linked to the liberty of the Iraqi people." He was scheduled to deliver another Iraq speech on Monday.
But Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein remained unconvinced, saying Iraq was inching closer to civil war amid growing rather than diminishing insurgency.
She also expressed alarm at the failure of Iraqi politicians to form a viable government. "In no uncertain terms, the president must immediately inform the Iraqi people that they must get their political house in order," Feinstein said in a Democratic radio response.
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